Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)(97)

Another nod of the head and another, “Yeah.”

I knew this wasn’t going real well. I couldn’t f*cking talk to folk. I couldn’t ever f*cking say anything right. Asher looked out over the woods, but I looked to my left, watching his face. Fucking seeing me in that face. Seeing the same kid I once was. And like me, Asher had been kept in that cellar… and f*ck knows what else.

“I ain’t good at talking,” I abruptly blurted. Asher’s face turned to me, and he swallowed. “I mean, I ain’t good at talking. At all. I don’t read people like others can. I’m not good with people’s emotions or shit, or mine. I… I always f*ck up things I wanna say, and people get real pissed, and I end up getting killing mad. It just all goes f*cking wrong. All the f*cking time."

“I know, Flame.”

I frowned. “You know?”

“Viking and AK have told me that… that you’re different from others. That you talk different to most people.” He swallowed and said, “They’ve told me how to speak to you. So, I get it.”

I glanced back to AK and Viking. Viking was f*cking around as always, but AK’s attention was focused our way. I flicked my chin at him, and he raised his beer in return.

Asher began pulling the grass from the ground, and as I took another sip of my beer, I noticed his hair. His dark hair, cut in a…

“Your hair’s like mine,” I said. Asher stilled. “You got a Mohawk,” I added, as my hand lifted to run through my own.

Asher’s face went bright red. “Yeah. I… everyone keeps telling me I look like you.” He shrugged. “I needed it cut, because poppa never cut it. So I asked for it to look like yours.”

“I don’t understand. Why the f*ck would you wanna look like me?” I asked. Asher’s expression changed. I didn’t know why his expression changed either. I couldn’t f*cking read him.

“Because… because you’re my brother,” he said under his breath. I froze and could feel my pulse slamming real fast. “I… I never had a brother before. I was always on my own. But I often wondered what it would’ve been like if I’d had someone else there with me. Poppa always talked about you. He said horrible things, things that he believed in his warped head, things Pastor Hughes had told him, but I never heard them. I never believed them. He said horrible things about me that I knew weren’t true, so I thought that was probably true of you too.”

As his words sunk in, a question came out my mouth. “Did he f*ck you? In that dirt cell, did he f*ck you?”

Asher froze, and his head dropped.

“Tell me,” I pushed. “I need to f*cking know.” I tapped my head. “I need to know because it’s all I think about up here.”

“He tried.” Asher whispered, “Every time he came into that cell, he tried. But he couldn’t ever do it.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, my stomach uncoiling in relief at the fact he didn’t f*ck him. He hadn’t f*cked Asher.

Thank f*ck.

“It was the drink, I think. He could barely walk after my mama died, when he put me in the cellar for the first time. He couldn’t get it up, Flame. He’d get mad, he’d beat me.” He held out his arms. “He even tried to cut me at first, but he’d almost drunk himself to death by the time you arrived.” Asher sighed, then said, “Mostly he just kept me in that cellar and called me a sinner, preached his bible talk to me from above. Don’t think he had the strength to do much else.”

I inhaled a sharp breath, then slowly exhaled, feeling all the concern I’d had, leave my body. “That’s f*cking good,” I admitted. Asher lowered his head again.

He lifted his hand and ran it through his hair. Just as I’d nearly finished my beer, he said, “I want to look like you because I wanna be like you.”

My head snapped to the kid. “Why the f*ck would you wanna be like me?”

Asher pointed at me. “You’re huge, strong, can protect yourself.”

“I lift a lotta f*cking weights,” I replied.

Asher shook his head. “I saw what you did to our poppa. I know what you did to Pastor Hughes and Elder Paul.” Asher threw a handful grass to the ground, and said, “I used to dream of being able to do that to Poppa, what you did. After my mama died, when he beat on me with a bat in that cellar, I wanted to hurt him back. Because he took my mama from me. My mama, Flame. She was such a good woman. But too weak to cope with him.” Asher sniffed, and quickly used his forearm to wipe his face.

My head twitched, not knowing what the f*ck to do. But Asher pulled his shit together, and choked out, “Then the older brother I always prayed would come back and get me, did. And you killed that f*cker. You killed him so that he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.” Asher started pulling the grass again, and said, “That’s why I wanna be like you. I don’t want to be hurt by anyone again. I wanna be able to defend myself, like you. I wanna be able to protect myself, from people like him.”

I looked at Asher’s size and knew that when he was my age he’d be a big motherf*cker too, but all I said in response was a promise. “No one will f*cking touch you again. You got me, and a f*ck load of Hangmen, at your back. And no one f*cks with us. No one.”

Asher was silent, then as his head dropped forward, his breathing changed. I turned, panicking at what the f*ck was wrong, when I saw water in his eyes. I ran my hands down my face when he said, “Thank you.”